Padecky: Megan Rapinoe continues legacy of The Athlete Voice

America was founded on a protest, but more than 200 years, later Megan Rapinoe shouldn’t. America thrives on conflict, it’s a daily menu item, it seems, but Megan Rapinoe crossed the line. America nurtures its hero rebels, builds statues for them, as long as they are white and male. Megan, unfortunately, can only check one box.

How could she? That was the whine. How could Megan bring politics into sport? America’s women were the world’s best soccer team. Unquestionably. So much to applaud. Why bring up money and disrespect? Why be such a Debbie Downer? The front page of a newspaper exposes our failures while the sports section highlights our achievements. Doesn’t Megan understand?

“You can,” said SSU professor Lauren Morimoto, “begin the discussion with this: You’re a female and you play a sport for money. What else do you want?”

That’s where the discussion can begin, but with very little effort and a bit of awareness, this is where it will end: The day in which politics and sport cease to comingle is long gone. That train has left the station, nowhere to be seen.

“The belief is that sport is isolated from reality,” said Morimoto, a kinesiology professor with an emphasis of sports sociology and former Chair, Athlete Advisory Committee. “Fact is, sports is reality.”

Fact further, the last we saw of that old mindset was 1966. When Muhammad Ali refused to fight in Vietnam, that was the beginning of The Athlete Voice. Every athlete since then can thank Ali for starting the awakening, the idea that athletes have brains as well as bodies and it’s not a sin to use both.

Ali missed four years of competition because of his protest, four years in which he was in his prime, four years gone - pfft - lost because of a simple principle that he had no anger toward the Viet Cong. “They never called me a ?n-----,” he said. “They never lynched me. They didn’t put dogs on me.”

Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis denounced Ali. Unable to box, almost broke, Ali resorted to giving speeches. His first one was at Temple University for $1,000. His second one, at Cheney State College, was for $500.

In retrospect, Ali’s sacrifice saved the 1960s from being dismissed as a hedonistic romp through sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. In 1968, John Carlos and Tommie Smith stood on the Olympic podium in Mexico City, each man raising a black-gloved fist. In 1969, St. Louis outfielder Curt Flood challenged Major League Baseball’s reserve clause. In 1970, Jim Bouton wrote “Ball Four.”

All five men were chastised, received death threats, effectively ending their careers (except for Ali). Bouton and Flood were blackballed. Carlos and Smith were kicked out of the Olympic Village; Smith told me two years ago he lived in a van afterward.

All paid the price for speaking out. All ripped the cover off the well-established edict that sometimes persists to this day.

“That if you are extremely gifted physically,” Morimoto said, “then you are lacking in other areas. Like being the dumb jock, for example.”

To be fair, the sport of baseball did much to create this meme. For the first 50 years of the past century, writers traveled on the train with the team they were covering. They drank with the players, caroused with the players, were told stories never to be repeated. Myths were established. Babe Ruth was just a fun-loving guy. Ty Cobb was a fierce competitor. Cheating was cute. The Negro Leagues - what Negro Leagues?

“Now there is no escaping reality,” Morimoto said. “Politics is in sports. Fighter jets flying over a Super Bowl. The national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, it’s all politics.”

Protests are as American as apple pie and baseball. If one woman repeats what we have been hearing for more than 40 years - equal pay for equal work - that doesn’t make Megan Rapinoe unique. Her platform is. No intellectual argument can be used against her.

Oh, you say, look at Megan throw up her arms and point to herself. Grandstanding, you say. Really? Have you seen an NFL game? Wide receivers score touchdowns and then perform like Chippendales dancers in the end zone, despondent that they have to keep their clothes on.

Oh, you say, look at Megan talking about money during the World Cup. Where’s her focus? She’s a professional, supposedly. Act professional. Really? Let’s not forget Anthony Davis announcing he was leaving the New Orleans Pelicans during the season.

Oh, you say, look at Megan acting so offended. Really? Have you watched an MLB game? A pitch is thrown inside and the batter glares at the pitcher like the guy just kidnapped his dog.

“What about (Nick) Bosa?” said Morimoto of the 49ers’ recently drafted linebacker who posted racist, homophobic slurs on Instagram while at Ohio State. “Where’s the ugly pushback from what he said?”

One doesn’t need to be a college professor specializing in sports sociology to know the answer to that question. A double standard exists, of course. Megan isn’t asking for just equal pay. She’s asking for equal voice.

Morimoto would like to know why posters of Megan at a New York City subway station had to be removed for the LGBTQ graffiti over them? One doesn’t have to be a sociology professor to know that answer as well.

“A problematic woman,” is how Morimoto guessed the mind behind that graffiti. It was a good guess.

So Megan Rapinoe is one of Ali’s children, as is Colin Kaepernick and Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe and every athlete who decides a mind is a terrible thing to waste, not to mention a right permitted by the First Amendment.

Once, silence was golden. Not anymore. Nor should it be.

To comment, write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.